Philip Caputo's Blog, page 17
May 31, 2013
Of maps, atlases, and the end of adventure in the digital age
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The fanciful map you see here, showing the route we followed, was created by Laura Hartman Maestro and will appear in the print and e-book editions of The Longest Road.
I love maps in all their forms: road maps, road atlases, topographic maps, marine charts. A map is the graphic representation of Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road”:
“You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that
is here.
I believe that much unseen is also here.”
A map calls you to leave the known for the unknown. It is a song in itself, promising new landscapes, new people, new experiences, and, if the traveler has a mind as open as the road before him, new insights.
My love affair with maps began a long time ago. An excerpt from The Longest Road:
“I remember an old world atlas that had belonged to my father in high school; it dated from the thirties, when some parts of the planet still appeared as white spots on the map. Oh, how I loved to stare at them and wonder, What’s there? Even in my own youth, a few places, like the depths of the Brazilian Amazon or the interior of New Guinea, remained as uncharted as Mars.”
I go on to note that today much of Mars has been mapped. As for our own planet, every square mile has been surveyed by satellite technology. There are no enticing blank spots left anywhere.
Which leads me, readers, to this observation: The benign tyranny of electronic navigation can turn an adventure into a mediocre experience, like a trip to the mall.
The risk of getting lost
If a journey is to have even an element of adventure, it also must have an element of the unknown and the unexpected. It should carry the risk of getting lost. The advent of the GPS and digitized cartography—i.e., Google Maps—have all but eliminated uncertainty from modern travel and replaced it with boring predictability.
We carried a hand-held GPS (a Garmin E-Trex) on the trip, as well as an Android smart-phone that, when in its GPS mode, could take us down any highway or street in America and deliver us to exact spot we wanted to reach. “Magic Droid,” as we called it, was a marvelous device, but its precision was depressing because it banished the anxiety of doubt.
Navigating with a map and compass, or with a sextant, or (most primitive of all), by the sun, stars, and terrain features, requires skill and practice. Even so, a lot of guesswork is involved, and that brings on a tingling tension, so when you arrive at your destination, you feel both relieved and gratified because your own brain and abilities, mixed with a little luck, are what got you there.
To maintain that frisson, I often artificially made things difficult. I would turn my GPS off and stash it in some hard to reach place, thus forcing myself to turn to my first love—the paper map—and then to figure out where I was and how to get where I was bound, without some gizmo doing it all for me. And when the message “No service” appeared on Magic Droid’s screen, I was thrilled.
What do you think of all this? Are you a traveler who must know exactly where you’re going and how to get there? Or do you delight in chance and uncertainty?
The post Of maps, atlases, and the end of adventure in the digital age appeared first on Philip Caputo.
TIMES REVIEW
May 20, 2013
Song of the cicada and other bugs of the road
A cicada we met at Meramac Farm, Missouri.
You’ve probably heard that the 17-year cicada is due to emerge this summer, mostly in the Eastern U.S. They will rise out of the burrows they’ve occupied since 1996, then mate, then die. After living underground such a long time, and with death so near, they deserve to have some fun in the open air. Eros and Thanatos and all that.
In 2011, as we traveled the longest road from Key West, Florida to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, we met the 13-year species on a farm in Missouri. There must have been a million of them on that one small farm – talk about biomass – and the males’ mating call rose to a high-pitched shriek that sounded like a hundred skill saws striking a hard knot at the same time. The noise actually got inside our heads. Everywhere lay the corpses of the boys who’d done their reproductive duty, their big orange eyes bulging like miniature pumpkins.
Love bugs covering the grill of our truck in Key West.
Earlier, in Florida, we encountered another type of insect also impelled by the urge to merge: Plecia nearctica Hardy, commonly known as the Love Bug, the Honeymoon Fly, or the Double-Headed Bug. They mate in mid-air—backwards, the male facing one direction, the female the other (hence, the double-headed nickname). She is the larger of the two, and tows the male along—a kind of insect dominatrix. These creatures boil out of swamps and roadside ditches in such numbers that driving through them is like driving through a blizzard. In no time at all, your windshield is so plastered with dead Love Bugs that you can barely see the road. Every half hour or so, you have to stop to replenish your washer fluid and scrape them off your grill. If you don’t, their highly acidic bodies will clog your car’s radiator and cause the engine to overheat.
Time to stop and clear the killing field.
The Monster of Them All
“Mothra” in the Fall Hollow bathroon
The ubiquitous mosquito was with us all the way, from the Everglades to the Arctic tundra. Ticks plagued our campsites in the South and Midwest. But for sheer horror the bath house in a backwoods Tennessee campground won the gold medal. The light outside was dimmed by a nimbus of flies, gnats, and other winged things only an entomologist could have identified. Inside, dead cockroaches littered the floor, while live ones slipped through cracks in the shower stall. Clinging to the walls were moths such as we had never seen; they were as big as house finches. One was bigger yet, a sci fi moth that might have been born in some radioactive waste dump. Leslie named him “Mothra.”
If you have any buggy tales to tell from your road trips, feel free to share them here.
Read more about cicadas in this 1-page New York magazine overview.
The post Song of the cicada and other bugs of the road appeared first on Philip Caputo.
Song of the Cicada and Other Bugs of the Road
A cicada we met at Meramac Farm, Missouri.
You’ve probably heard that the 17-year cicada is due to emerge this summer, mostly in the Eastern U.S. They will rise out of the burrows they’ve occupied since 1996, then mate, then die. After living underground such a long time, and with death so near, they deserve to have some fun in the open air. Eros and Thanatos and all that.
In 2011, as we traveled the longest road from Key West, Florida to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, we met the 13-year species on a farm in Missouri. There must have been a million of them on that one small farm – talk about biomass – and the males’ mating call rose to a high-pitched shriek that sounded like a hundred skill saws striking a hard knot at the same time. The noise actually got inside our heads. Everywhere lay the corpses of the boys who’d done their reproductive duty, their big orange eyes bulging like miniature pumpkins.
Love bugs covering the grill of our truck in Key West.
Earlier, in Florida, we encountered another type of insect also impelled by the urge to merge: Plecia nearctica Hardy, commonly known as the Love Bug, the Honeymoon Fly, or the Double-Headed Bug. They mate in mid-air—backwards, the male facing one direction, the female the other (hence, the double-headed nickname). She is the larger of the two, and tows the male along—a kind of insect dominatrix. These creatures boil out of swamps and roadside ditches in such numbers that driving through them is like driving through a blizzard. In no time at all, your windshield is so plastered with dead Love Bugs that you can barely see the road. Every half hour or so, you have to stop to replenish your washer fluid and scrape them off your grill. If you don’t, their highly acidic bodies will clog your car’s radiator and cause the engine to overheat.
Time to stop and clear the killing field.
The Monster of Them All
“Mothra” in the Fall Hollow bathroon
The ubiquitous mosquito was with us all the way, from the Everglades to the Arctic tundra. Ticks plagued our campsites in the South and Midwest. But for sheer horror the bath house in a backwoods Tennessee campground won the gold medal. The light outside was dimmed by a nimbus of flies, gnats, and other winged things only an entomologist could have identified. Inside, dead cockroaches littered the floor, while live ones slipped through cracks in the shower stall. Clinging to the walls were moths such as we had never seen; they were as big as house finches. One was bigger yet, a sci fi moth that might have been born in some radioactive waste dump. Leslie named him “Mothra.”
If you have any buggy tales to tell from your road trips, feel free to share them here.
Read more about cicadas in this 1-page New York magazine overview.
The post Song of the Cicada and Other Bugs of the Road appeared first on Philip Caputo.
May 13, 2013
Travels with Leslie
Leslie in the Atigun Pass, Alaska
In my last post, I mentioned the challenges of traveling long distances with dogs. There also are challenges to traveling with your spouse. My wife, Leslie Ware, accompanied me on the journey from the subtropics to the Arctic. Four months on the road in a trailer smaller than a walk-in closet can strain a happy marriage. It’s kind of like putting an otherwise reliable airplane through tricky maneuvers: hidden stress cracks in the wings and fuselage start to show.
Before we left, some of Leslie’s friends said encouraging things like, “My husband and I would kill each other.” A man we’d met when we started off from Key West looked at our tiny, tinny, 50-year-old Airstream, and said that if we made it to Alaska “in that little old thing” he’d be surprised if we were still married. When Leslie asked if he had any tips on marital survival, he replied, “Get a bigger trailer or take shorter trips.”
Leslie & Phil on “The Loneliest Road” (U.S. 50) in Nevada
Well, we got to Alaska, and we got back, and neither of us is seeing a lawyer. We actually drew closer on the trip. We became road buddies, because we had to work together every day to accomplish one simple task – to get from Point A to Point B. So tell me, if you and your spouse or significant other had to be on the road for four months, would you pull together or pull apart?
The post Travels with Leslie appeared first on Philip Caputo.
May 6, 2013
Travels with Sage and Sky
Phil, Sage, and Sky in Idaho
John Steinbeck traveled with Charley, his poodle. I traveled with Sage and Sky, my two English setters, pictured here. They were distant cousins, and as you can see, almost a matched pair. In the field, I had a hard time telling who was who. (I use the past tense because Sage died on December 21, 2011, at age 13½ ). On a long road trip, as at home, dogs provide companionship; they relieve the loneliness of the lonesome road, but they present challenges to the traveler. Because there wasn’t enough space in the car on a family vacation, Mitt Romney strapped his dog to the roof-rack, as if it were luggage. During the 2012 presidential race, New York Times columnist Gail Collins never let him forget it. Maybe that’s why he lost the election.
Sage and Sky in their truck lair
Sage and Sky had a home in the back of my pickup truck. Covered by a hardtop, it was big enough to accommodate them, their water and food dishes, and their bed, along with spare tires and equipment. They would not have survived a four-month journey of more than 16,000 miles riding on the roof. I had a few wacky experiences with them, like Sage’s attempt to outswim ducks in a Texas river, which is described in The Longest Road.
I invite visitors to this site to relate adventures you’ve had with your dog on long hauls.
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May 3, 2013
STRANGLE "REACH OUT" IN THE WOMB
I am on a lonely campaign to prevent another atrocity to the English language. For years now, we have been reading and listening to people use “impact” as a verb in place of “affect.” E.g. “This legislation will impact future generations.” A hideous monster-child of this usage has been the adjective “impactful.”
We have also become familiar with other mutilations: “prioritize” Instead of “give priority to,” and, most horrible of all, “incentivize,”
in place of “provide an incentive for.”
Now comes “reach out” in lieu of “contact.” This verb is vague and fuzzy, it suggests someone attempting to get hold of someone else but not quite making it all the way. It’s got a dreamy, therapeutic sound to it, as in “I reached out to help her stop drinking, but I failed.”
As a citizen of our great republic, Aaron, you are free to use this verb, but not with me. Henceforth, I beg of you, if someone is going to contact me by any means, be it phone, e-mail, letter, or carrier pigeon, please say in future communications that they will “contact” me. It’s a good, strong, concrete sort of word. I do give you leave, however, to employ alternatives, such as “get in touch with you,” or “get a hold of you.”
I have spokenized.
All best, Phil.
How many of you out there will join my crusade?
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STRANGLE ‘”REACH OUT” IN THE WOMB!
Recently, an editor informed me that a reporter from the New York Times was going to “reach out” to me soon. This was my reply:
I am on a lonely campaign to prevent another atrocity to the English language. For years now, we have been reading and listening to people use “impact” as a verb in place of “affect.” E.g. “This legislation will impact future generations.” A hideous monster-child of this usage has been the adjective “impactful.”
We have also become familiar with other mutilations: “prioritize” Instead of “give priority to,” and, most horrible of all, “incentivize,”
in place of “provide an incentive for.”
Now comes “reach out” in lieu of “contact.” This verb is vague and fuzzy, it suggests someone attempting to get hold of someone else but not quite making it all the way. It’s got a dreamy, therapeutic sound to it, as in “I reached out to help her stop drinking, but I failed.”
As a citizen of our great republic, Aaron, you are free to use this verb, but not with me. Henceforth, I beg of you, if someone is going to contact me by any means, be it phone, e-mail, letter, or carrier pigeon, please say in future communications that they will “contact” me. It’s a good, strong, concrete sort of word. I do give you leave, however, to employ alternatives, such as “get in touch with you,” or “get a hold of you.”
I have spokenized.
All best, Phil.
How many of you out there will join my crusade?
The post STRANGLE ‘”REACH OUT” IN THE WOMB! appeared first on Philip Caputo.
April 29, 2013
Two simple questions, surprising answers
The Longest Road is a travel book, the account of an epic journey from the southernmost point in the continental U.S., Key West, Florida, to the northernmost you can get to by road, Deadhorse, Alaska, on the gray shores of the Arctic Ocean. But this story is also an exploration of what unites the United States, and what may be disuniting it. Sometimes I feel that there are more things tearing our social fabric than there were in the divisive Sixties. One example: a petition calling for Texas to secede from the Union recently got 100,000 signatures.
Annaliese Apel, wrangler in Montana
On my trip, I spoke to dozens of people from all walks of life – a couple trying to save the homeless and the addicted in Florida, a Lakota shaman who was also a taco entrepreneur, a former “girl gangster” turned Montana wrangler – and recorded their answers to two questions: What holds a nation so vast and diverse together? Is it holding together as well as it once did? What some of them had to say may surprise you.
If you have any comments on these two questions yourself, feel free to offer them below.
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April 27, 2013
For those of you in a hurry….
I previously posted a 5-minute book trailer that featured narrated excerpts from THE LONGEST ROAD. For those of you in a rush, here is a quicker one-minute video overview of the book, produced by Nick Katzenbach (the photos and video snippets were taken by my wife, Leslie).
Nick is an independent film editor and director, whose most recent production is “The Meter Man of Le Moutrechon.” I’m grateful that he took on this little promotional project for me. I’ve known Nick since he was a boy. I’m good friends with his parents, novelist John Katzenbach and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Madeleine Blais. Nick shares his name with his grandfather, Nicholas deBelleville Katzenbach, who became famous for facing down George Wallace in 1963 at the University of Alabama while serving as U.S. Attorney General under Lyndon B. Johnson.
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